nous a business; yet for Eva's sake I was glad that he had; for
my mind failed (rather than refused) to believe him so black as she had
painted him.

The long, long afternoon that followed I never shall forget. The opiate
racked my head; it did not do its work; and I longed to sleep till
evening with a longing I have never known before or since. Everything
seemed to depend upon it; I should be a man again, if only I could
first be a log for a few hours. But no; my troubles never left me for an
instant; and there I must lie, pretending that they had! For the other
draught was for the night; and if they but thought the first one had
taken due effect, so much the less would they trouble their heads about
me when they believed that I had swallowed the second.

Oh, but it was cruel! I lay and wept with weakness and want of sleep;
ere night fell I knew that it would find me useless, if indeed my reason
lingered on. To lie there helpless when Eva was expecting me, that would
be the finishing touch. I should rise a maniac if ever I rose at
all. More probably I would put one of my five big bullets into my own
splitting head; it was no small temptation, lying there in a double
agony, with the loaded weapon by my side.

Then sometimes I thought it was coming; and perhaps for an instant would
be tossing in my hen-coop; then back once more. And I swear that
my physical and mental torments, here in my bed, would have been
incomparably greater than anything I had endured on the sea, but for the
saving grace of one sweet thought. She lived! She lived! And the God who
had taken care o me, a castaway, would surely deliver her also from
the hands of murderers and thieves. But not through me--I lay weak and
helpless--and my tears ran again and yet again as I felt myself growing
hourly weaker.

I remember what a bright fine day it was, with the grand open country
all smiles beneath a clear, almost frosty sky, once when I got up on
tip-toe and peeped out. A keen wind whistled about the cottage; I felt
it on my feet as I stood; but never have I known a more perfect and
invigorating autumn day. And there I must lie, with the manhood ebbing
Out of me, the manhood that I needed so for the night! I crept back into
bed. I swore that I would sleep. Yet there I lay, listening sometimes to
that vile woman's tread below; sometimes to mysterious whispers, between
whom I neither knew nor cared; anon to my watch ticking by my side, to
the heart beati